The war which began with the invasion of Italy by Hannibal lasted for seventeen years. The periods of the war are four. The first comprehends the victorious career of Hannibal, from the passage of the Alps to Capua. Each year is marked by a great battle—Trebia, Trasimene, Cannæ (218-215 B.C.). The second is of five years, in which the Romans succeed in recovering Capua, while they lose Tarentum (215-211 B.C.). The third, of four years, in which Hannibal, left without support from home, is obliged more and more to confine himself to the mountain regions of Calabria. It ends with the disastrous battle of the Metaurus (211-207 B.C.). The fourth, of four years, in which Hannibal stands at bay in the extremity of Italy, while the main scene of the war shifts to Spain, Sicily, and Africa. It terminates with the great battle of Zama, and peace (206-202 B.C.).
But during the former periods of the great war, the Roman arms were also engaged in Spain, in Sicily, and in Epirus. From the very beginning of the war they maintained the conflict in Spain. After 215 B.C. they were obliged to besiege Syracuse and reconquer Sicily, as well as Sardinia. In 212 B.C. they declared war against Philip of Macedon, in order to prevent him from sending aid to Hannibal in Italy.
The winter of 219 was passed by Hannibal in active preparation. His soldiers received leave of absence, with orders to be present at New Carthage at the very beginning of the next spring. He sent envoys into the south of Gaul and north of Italy, to inform the Celts on both sides of the Alps of his expedition to win the Transalpine Gauls with hopes of the plunder of Italy, to rouse the Cisalpine by promises of delivery from the Roman yoke.
Thus assured, Hannibal reviewed his troops at New Carthage. The army of invasion amounted to ninety thousand foot and twelve thousand horse, with some fifty elephants. The infantry were mostly Spanish, the veteran soldiers of Hamilcar and Hasdrubal, recruited by new levies of his own. The Spaniards, however, were kept in balance by a large body of Libyan mercenaries. The light infantry, slingers and archers, were from the Balearic Isles. Of the cavalry, the heavy troopers were Spanish, while the light horse were furnished by Numidia; and the whole of this arm was placed under the command of the fiery Maharbal.
Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, was left at New Carthage, to rule the lately conquered province of Spain, and to raise an army of reserve for the Italian war. Mago, his youngest brother, accompanied the general.
Having left New Carthage about the end of May, Hannibal marched with no interruption to the Ebro; but as soon as he had crossed that river, the whole country up to the Pyrenees was hostile. By great rapidity of movement, though with the loss of many men, he reduced all the tribes to submission in a few weeks, and, leaving an officer, with eleven thousand men, in charge of this district, he pushed forwards to the Pyrenees. Here his Spanish soldiers first discovered that they were to be led into strange and unknown lands; discontent appeared in the camp; three thousand Carpetanians, a tribe which had not been long conquered, seized their arms and set off homewards. Upon this, Hannibal, with prudent frankness, called the troops together, told them his whole design, and gave all who were unwilling to go on, free leave to return. Nearly eight thousand more availed themselves of this permission.
He passed round the eastern end of the Pyrenees, where the mountains sink gently towards the sea, and halted his army for a few days at Ruscino (Roussillon). On a review, it appeared that the losses he had sustained, together with the twenty-two thousand men whom he had left in Catalonia or who had gone home, had reduced his foot to fifty thousand, and his horse to nine thousand. With this force he advanced almost unopposed to the banks of the Rhone.
It is now time to inquire what the Romans were doing to meet the coming danger. The senate had not been idle. But they had acted on the supposition that the Second Punic War, like the First, would be fought on foreign soil. It is almost amusing to contrast their expectations with the result. The plebeian consul, Ti. Sempronius Longus, was sent to Lilybæum with a large fleet, with orders to invade Africa: the other consul, P. Cornelius Scipio, was to land in Spain and take the field against Hannibal. And it is plain that the senate thought this service the least important of the two, because they detained Scipio’s army rather than that of Sempronius, to quell a rebellion which broke out in Cisalpine Gaul, in consequence of the proceedings of the triumviri, who had been sent to distribute the confiscated lands of the Boians and Insubrians among the colonists of Placentia and Cremona. Just at this time the envoys of Hannibal arrived, and the Gauls rushed to arms. To repress this outbreak, one of Scipio’s legions was sent off in all haste, and the consul could not set sail for Spain till he had raised a new legion. His troops met at Pisa, and he was just weighing anchor for Spain when he heard that Hannibal had already crossed the Pyrenees.
On receiving this news, he put in at the allied city of Massilia (Marseilles), and disembarked there, intending to arrest Hannibal’s march upon the Rhone. He did not expect him there for some time yet, and therefore he gave his army some days’ rest, while he despatched a reconnoitring party of three hundred picked horse up the left bank of the river, under the trusty guidance of the Massaliots.